DREAMGATES a conscious dream journey to contact her departed friend. He told her he would help her in her new work and gave her specificand helpful information to which she had not had access in her waking life. In many of our hospitals (where most Westerners die) death is treated asafailure oras merely theloss of vital signs. As werecover theart of dying, many of us in all walks of life — not only ministers and health care professionals and hospice volunteers — will be able to play therole of companion on the deathwalk, helping the dying to approach the next life with grace and courage and to make the last seasons of this life a period of personal growth. When a dying person is preparing to move on, one of the most helpful and human things we can do to assist her with the transition isto help herto picturea happy way of leaving afamiliarenvironment for a journey into another dimension. Dreams, life memories, and guided meditation can all be used to help the dying to preparefor the release of consciousness from the physical plane. Dreamwork with the Dying Spontaneous sleep dreams may introduceimages ofa portal orcrossing and of guides and allies on the Other Side who can be revisited through dream reentry or guided visualization. Such dreams are as likely to come to the helper or “coach” as to the dying person. Waterslide World Wendy’s mother was in her seventies and had been living alone in another part of the United States for several years following the death of her husband. Wendy dreamed she was with her mother on a waterslide. They were sliding together into an enormous swimming pool, whooping it up like kidsatan amusement park. Wendy’s mother shot on ahead, laughing as she splashed into the clear blue water. As Wendy reached the end of the slide, a large barricade came down, blocking herfrom dropping into the pool. She peered around theedge
Sharing the Deathwalk of this obstruction and saw her mother swimming and frolicking in the pool, having a wonderful time. Wendy was amazed and delighted by this scene, because her mother had never learned to swim; she had always been afraid of the water. Wendy started to step around the barricadeto get into the pool. Then she heard a man’s voice, telling her firmly, “You are not invited.” She realized it was her father who was speaking to her. She looked down into the pool again and saw that her mother and father weresporting together. Both of them were younger. They were having a great time. When Wendy called meto sharethis dream, shetold meshe had not spoken to her mother for many weeks but planned to phone her that evening. We both felt her dream might be preparing her for her mother’s death. I asked Wendy if she intended to share her dream with her mother. “I could do that,” Wendy reflected. She had often had trouble communicating with her mother. But, as she put it, “My mother believes in dreams.” I suggested that she should try to narrate her dream in a gentle, expansive way, making her descriptionsastactileand sensuousas possible: thesensation of shooting down theslide; thethrill of splashing into the water; the joy of frolicking about in the pool; the loving, playful presence of her father. “If this were my dream,” I told Wendy, “I would feel it was helping me to prepare my mother for her transition to the next life. It doesn’t necessarily mean she’s going to die tomorrow or next week or next year. It’s always time to prepare for this journey, which may come long before, or long after, the time we expect.” Thatevening, in alengthy, long-distance phonecall, Wendy not only relayed her dream to her mother but also led her inside the dreamscape,evoking the play of all thesenses. Her mother loved the experience! Shefelt thesmooth releaseinto anotherelement. She was amazed that she found herself completely at home in the water. She got happy shivers over her playful reunion with her husband. This
DREAMGATES reminded her of a dream of her own in which her husband had come to say good-bye soon after he died. A week after the phone conversation, Wendy’s mother called to tell her, “You were right about your Dad in the pool. I dreamed last night there was a knock on my door. Your father was there, looking young and so handsome. He gave mea big hug and told me he’s living in a place where it is always spring and he’ll take me there when the time is right.” When Wendy transferred her dream to her mother, she opened a door through which a guide with a familiar face stepped into her mother’s life. Wendy’s mother lost all fear of death and was able to embark on the last part of her life journey with courage and grace. After she passed, two years later, she appeared to Wendy, reunited with her husband,and they showed Wendy around their home on the Other Side. Stepping through the Wardrobe Elibieta, a Polish laboratory assistant, dreamed she was in a friend’s house. In her dream, thefriend’s house was notably different than in ordinary reality. Elibieta found herself walking an unfamiliar corridor, looking for a door. Where she expected to find the door, there was a wardrobe instead. When she moved the wardrobe aside, she entered a different dimension. The wallsand the house disappeared, and she found her friend in a fresh new world, filled with light. The scene thrilled the dreamer, filling her with joy. Elibieta’s dream was prophetic. A year later, her friend went into a hospital for a major operation that failed to cure her illness. Afterward, thefriend moved into the house of areligious order whereshe spent her last days. When Elibieta visited this housefor the first time, she was told that the door to her friend’s room was beyond a large wardrobethat had been moved into thecorridorto makeroom for her bed. Elibieta found herself walking into a locale from her dream.
Sharing the Deathwalk She dreamed of wardrobes repeatedly in the days that followed. On one of her visits to her friend, Elibietafound her in great pain. As Elibieta was leaving, she saw the huge wardrobe beyond the door. She turned back to her friend and shared her original dream, describing the luminous world where she found her friend living on the other side of the wardrobe. They both got happy shivers as they explored this image. For Elibieta’s friend, “stepping through the wardrobe” became a spontaneous meditation. She had been nearly blind for years prior to her final illness, but she saw these images in glowing color and depth. As she saw herself stepping through the wardrobe, she was rehearsing — in a simple, spontaneous way — for the transition that came shortly afterward, when she died peacefully in her bed. This is a wonderful example of how working with dreams can help the dying. I was especially struck by the power of Elibieta’s dream image, because the evening before she shared it with me, my youngest daughterand I had doneajoint reading of the firstchapters of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In C.S. Lewis’s fantasy for children of all ages, a wardrobe is the doorway to the Otherworld kingdom of Narnia. Elibieta could have borrowed her image from a book (though not from C.S. Lewis, who was not part of her childhood reading in Poland),and it might or might not have worked with the same power. The point is that her wardrobe was utterly personal and specific — that wardrobe, in that old house in Warsaw — while resonating with the depths of a universal and never-ending story. Through the Picture If the dying person has no strong religious beliefs, is skeptical about the possibility of life beyond the body, and has no suitable dream memories, she may still be helped by a sensitive person who can assist her to call up and reentera beautiful memory from an earlier period in her life. This must be the right kind of memory. To dwell, on
DREAMGATES the eve of death, on familiar places and happy times among people who arestill living could haveentirely the wrong effect, by enmeshing the dying person in attachments to the physical world. The aim is to guide the dying person forward, not backward. How can this possibly beaccomplished by leading that person on what sounds like a nostalgia trip? In one of two ways. The first is to guidethe dying person’s mind to the image of loved ones who have already passed on. She may see herself dancing with her beloved husband, who died ten years before her, or bouncing on her granny’s knee in the long-lost home in the Smoky Mountains. As she moves beyond the body, along the deathwalk, she may encounter thesesame departed loved ones. It is of secondary importance whether the figures who may now appear to her aretheindividual spirits of the peopleshe knew or theformsassumed by other guides to reassure her she will beloved and protected and to speak to her according to her level of understanding. Thesecond kind of life memory thatcan be used asaspringboard for leaving the body behind is an episode in which the dying person moves gracefully into another dimension. This is likely to be a memory of moving into theelements of water orair, sincefew of us have danced through fire. A beautiful example of how a memory of this kind can be used to construct a personal rite of departure is in the movieIt’s My Party. In this tragicomic film, Eric Roberts playsa man with AIDS who has resolved to end his life by drug overdose before he loses his eyesight and his mental faculties. In his last minutes, his friend leads him on a deep visualization of aridethey oncetook on a ski lift. When they got to thetop, they took offand were “flying.” He passes with this wonderful image of flight off the mountain. The memory of a favorite pet can also be helpful in preparing a dying person for the crossing to the afterlife. For some reason, many people in our culture seem to have fewer reservations about
Sharing the Deathwalk encountering pets that have died than about dealing with departed friends or family. In particular, dogs we have known present themselves quite spontaneously as guides to the Otherworld. After my dogKipling—a huge, fiercely loyalshepherd-Labrador mutt — was killed on the road in , he appeared to several members of my family in important dreams. In one of my dreams, his appearance offered insight into the nature of death itself: Across the River Icameto theedge of ariver. There wasan island on thefar side, with lush green vegetation. I realized my dog was over there, bounding about, having a great timechasing something through the bushes. He was always a great hunter, the terror of woodchucks on the farm. Icalled to him,and he pointed and swiveled his head toward me. He couldn’t see me. I thought he was blind, because his eyes had a milky cast. Then I realized there was a transparent screen between him and me. It covered the whole island, like shrink-wrap. Communicating on the Soul Level We can use the skills of active dreaming to reach people who cannot bereached by other meansand sharetheir deathwalk in a helpfuland spirited way: we can learn to communicate on a soul level with patients who are in a coma, are unable to speak or reason clearly, or have suffered memory loss. “I Deserve a Window” Connie,acaring and sensitive nurse who had worked with many terminal patients, was deeply troubled by the case of an elderly coma patient who had been on lifesupport foralong time. The doctors believed that there was almost no chance that Ruth would revive. For the family, hospital visits were heartbreaking; Ruth’s son referred to
DREAMGATES them as “a wake that never ends.” Yet for some reason, Ruth was hanging on. Connie had attended some of my workshops and had learned to focus and expand her natural flair for dream travel. She recognized that Ruth’s soul had basically left her body yet remained connected to it by a thread. So long as this thread was intact, the body would remain alive, though completely dormant, and the soul would be detained from moving into higher realms. Connie decided she would journey to communicate with Ruth on a soul level. Connie’s intention was to determine why Ruth was still clinging to the vestiges of life: Did she want to come back, or was something blocking her from going forward? “When Iencountered Ruth’s spirit,” Conniereported, “shetold meshe hated theshared, windowless room they had given her in the hospital. She felt she deserved better treatment. She wanted them to play the classical music she loved. She identified several tapes she wanted brought from her house. She wasalso very disappointed that most of her family and friends had stopped visiting her in the ward. She named several people who should come pay their last respects. She told me that when her wishes were fulfilled, she would be ready to take her leave.” Connie persuaded the hospital to movethecoma patient to a private room with a view. She called Ruth’s family and asked them to bring over the tapes; Ruth’s son agreed to do this at once, while expressing surprisethat the nurse knew moreabout his mother’s musical tastes than he did. One by one, the friends and family members Ruth had asked forcameto pay their respects. Then Ruth passed over peacefully. The night she died, Conniesat up in bed. “I saw aradiant ball of golden light moving through my home. I felt Ruth’s presence. I was filled with joy.”
Sharing the Deathwalk “I’ve Been Waiting to Say Good-bye Properly” A woman named Maya approached me during a break in one of my workshops. She was troubled by the plight of her father,a man whose condition had been diagnosed as “senile dementia.” “He’s been in and out of hospital beds,and in and out of his head, for thelast three years,” shereported, hereyes welling with tears. “I love him, but I can’t stand to be near him. Is there anything I can do to help?” Iasked her father’sage. When Mayatold me he waseighty-four, I suggested that surely the most important thing was to help prepare him for the next life and to make sure that nothing was in his way. Maya nodded vigorously. “If I were you,” I suggested, “I would try to communicate with his higher self, on a level where he is not impaired. I would try to clarify what he wants — to come back to his body, if he needs more time, or to go forward, if he’s ready.” Maya waseager to try this. Sheasked whether thefact that her father was living thousands of miles away might be an impediment. “Not necessarily.” I shared severalexperiences of working in this way across great distances. Maya wasa gifted dream journeyerand had no difficulty shifting consciousness as she leaned her back against a tree in the garden of the holistic center where we were working. She had vivid sensations of flight and then of a joyful, animated encounter with a younger, more vigorous version of her father in a light-filled “space without walls.” Her father told her he loved her and needed to lay to rest old misunderstandings. “I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye properly.” Maya was deeply moved. But in a part of herself, she feared she was indulging in wishful thinking, “making things up.” Her doubts were resolved that night, when she learned that her
DREAMGATES father had passed over peacefully, less than half an hourafter she had journeyed to meet him. Shared Meditation:Joining the Light One of the most beautifuland practicalelementsin Sögyal Rinpoche’s application of the ancient Tibetan art of dying to modern lives is his guidance on meditation with and for those who are approaching death. He offers improvisations on the technique of phowa, or the “transfer of consciousness.” By my observation, these work quite well for Westerners provided thelanguageand imagesareadapted to the personal evolution and belief system of the individual. A simple adaptation is this heart meditation: Heart Meditation . Invoketheembodiment of Lightand Lovein theform you truly believe in, glowing in the sky above you. You may see this radiant presence as Christ or the Goddess or one of the buddhas — or simply as a form of pure golden light. . Fill your heart with this radiant presence. Seethelight of its truth and compassion streaming into your heart center, washing you free of all guilt and fear. . Seethelight growing strongerand brighterat your heartcenter. Your consciousness is becoming a sphere of light in the place of your heart. . Let the light from your heart stream outward and upward like a shooting starand fly into the heart of the being of Light you have invoked. . See your heart-light merge with the greater radianceand dissolve into the greater Light. A meditation of this kind is meant to be practiced until it becomes second nature. When we have mastered heart meditation ourselves, we can offer great help to the dying by guiding them through it. If
Sharing the Deathwalk they are too impaired, too scared, or too intransigent in their selflimiting beliefs to be open to this kind of practice, Sögyal Rinpoche suggests that we can still help by doing it for them: Meditation on Behalf of the Dying . Visualizearadiant presenceabovethe head of the dying person. . See rays of light streaming down onto the dying person, cleansing and brightening his or her whole being. . See the dying person rising in his or her shining body to merge with the greater Light. All this may be far simpler than we imagine. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (–),alay Carmelite brother who worked quietly and happily in a monastery kitchen for thirty years, offers this reassurance: That neither skill nor knowledgeis required to enable us to go to God, but justa heart determined to turn to Him only, to beat for Him only, and to love Him only. That God never fails to offer his graceat ourevery action; but we do not perceiveit when our minds have wandered from God, or if we have forgotten to ask his aid. Brother Lawrence’s practice was simply to focus his awareness, in the midst of his daily activities, on “the presence of God.” He experienced thisas “an inward lifting of the heart” to asource of boundless Love. Theform in which he perceived his God will startlethose of straight-jacketed faith: “My usual method is simple attentiveness and a loving gaze upon God, to whom I often feel united with more happinessand gratification than those ofa baby at its mother’s breast. Such is theinexpressiblefelicity I haveexperienced that I would dare to call this state ‘the breasts of God.’”
What to DoWhen You Might Be Dead in Denver It was snowing over the new Denverairportas I boarded theshuttle bus for my hotel. My suitcase was flying somewhere without me. I had left home at the start of a warm, bright end-of-summer day — warm enough to swim in the pool, which was still open — bound for Boise via Chicago. Storms in the Midwest, mechanical trouble, and missed connections had bumped me to Detroit and dumped me in Denver snow, well after midnight, en route to a ghost airport. Planes no longer fly from the old Stapleton field, but the lookalike airport hotels cling like crabgrass to the perimeter of its terrain vague. How do I know I’m not dreaming? Iasked myself as I rode up in Our service to the dead is not narrowed to our prayers, but may be as wide as our imagination. — WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Helping the Departed CHAPTER TWELVE
DREAMGATES the glass cage of the hotel elevator. The seasons were scrambled; I had spentall day traveling to placesthat were not on my itinerary;and I had ended up at an airport from which planes do no take off. As a matter of fact, how did I know I wasn’t dead? In dreams, I have noticed that luggage is sometimes a metaphor for the physical body, as wellasforlife burdens. HereI was, besidea ghostairport, without my bag. Could it be I had lost my bag of meat and bones? I called my friend in Boise. There was static on the line, but he seemed to understand me well enough. This seemed to indicate that I was not dead or dreaming — until I remembered that in dreams, we quitefrequently receive phonecalls from the departed. Whatevidence did I havethat I was not one of those dead people who phone the living in their dreams? Only the minor discomforts of the flesh:a mildly upset stomach, the pricking of stubble I pecked at with the little pink throwaway razor they had given meat the hotel reception desk. I showered until my skin shone red as a boiled lobster. The depth and texture of all these corporeal sensations were proof, surely, that I was fully inside my physical body and was therefore neither dead nor dreaming. Yet the play of thesenses (I reflected) is notconfined to the physical plane. The dreambody has its own sensory array; it experiences touch and smelland taste,as wellas sightand sound and a finer range of perception, mediated by finer antennae. I resolved to dream on my problem. I tossed for a long time on an uncomfortable cusp of sleep, disturbed by the psychic litter you routinely encounter in places frequented by transients: the fantasies and nightmares of traveling salesmen, flight attendants, and (on this particular night) prison wardens, who had been in town for a conference. I watched thetawdry show foracouple of hours beforeI fell into a dream: I am flying under a snowy sky, over an airfield from which planes never take off. Below me are anonymous rooftops. I can’t tell one
Helping the Departed building from another. I’m having a hard time remembering where I left my body. It’s in one of these hotels, but I can’t for the life of me remember which one. Something tugs at me, and I decide to take a chance. I dive down through one of therooftopsand land with a huge whoomph in the body on the bed. I opened my eyes, feeling bruised and disoriented. I recognized nothing in my environment, nothing that pertained to me. For a ghastly moment, I not only did not know whereI was, I did not know who I was. I retained my sense of self. In a larger sense, I knew perfectly well who I was. But for a moment, I had forgotten what identity and what body I had chosen to inhabit. I recovered from my partialamnesia within seconds, but it wasa shocker. The experience was still percolating as the morning shuttle carried meacross the high plateau toward the nested cones of the new airport terminal. The path of the soul after death, say the Plains Indians, is the path of thesoul in dreams — except that you don’t get to come back (however bumpily) to thesame physical body. Given my confusion, coming and going from the dream state, is itany wonder that people get lost and confused after physical death? Why the Departed Get Stuck Theliving haveacrucial roleto play in helping to releaseearthbound or troubled spirits. For onething, some of these “ex-physicals” seem to trust people who have physical bodies more than entities that do not, becausethereiscomfort in thefamiliar, becausethey did not believein an afterlife before passing on — or quitesimply becausethey do not know they are dead. “You feel more familiar to one who has just passed over,” a mother was told by her departed son, in one of several similarcases reported by Dr. Robert Crookall. British clairvoyant L.M. Fitzsimmons maintained that “earthbound and other
DREAMGATES spirits needing help listen and pay attention to what you have to say because, by your appearance, they realize that you have a physical body.” Often they announce their condition and their need for help to the living in dreams. By my observation, the mostcommon reasons people get “stuck” on the Other Side and remain unhealthily attached to the living include the following: 1. The departed often do not know they are dead. Swedenborg observed that “when a person enters the spiritual world, or lifeafter death, heis in a body the way he was in the world. There seems to be no difference, so he does not feel or see any difference.” In Western society, thestudy of thesubtle vehicles of consciousness is not exactly part of mainstream culture. So it is not at all surprising that many people who “wake up” to find themselves in a postmortem environment do not realizethey are dead. They still have bodies that can experience pleasure and pain, and the world around them looks like the one they know. Kim dreamed that a lover who had died was sprawled on the couch in her living room, watching TV. She had had previous dream encounters with him since his death, including several in which they had had sex. In the new dream, something — maybe the banality of the scene — shocked her into realizing that things were not right. Shereentered the dream and asked the deceased lover, “Whatare you doing in my house?” He shrugged and told her, “I’m just watching TV.” Sheinitiated a dialogue. Shecoached him, gently but firmly, in thefact that he was no longeraliveand presumably had better things to do than to hang around his old haunts. He responded by proposing sex. “You can sit on my face,” he suggested with a leer. She had to get tough before he left the house.
Helping the Departed In a dream, I found myself mentoring a large group of worldly people who were being helped in their adjustment to conditions on the Other Side: Iam in alarge, pleasantassembly hall, with a platform decorated with flowers and ferns. Most of the people in the audience of several hundred are elderly Jewish New Yorkers, many of them deeply tanned from their retirement years in south Florida. They are very thisworldly people. They have been shocked to discover thereality of the afterlife, and they are trying to figure out how to relate the rules and skills they havelearned to their new condition. Someinsulteach other in Yiddish. I spend time with two older men — tanned, wrinkled, successful businessmen. I am astonished by the depth of my compassion and empathy for these people. Iexplore with them how they can apply some of their worldly gifts to their new situation. They perk up when I suggest that thereisalways room for negotiation. They show off the fact that I have befriended them. This gives them validation and enables them to rescue some sense of self-worth. I recognized one of the men in this dream, thefather of a woman who wasafrequent participant in my Active Dreaming circles. I like to think that sheand I wereableto give him some practical help when he subsequently passed on. 2. The departed cling to familiar places. Lisa’s mother had left hera piece of land, quite valuable because of urban development in thearea. Lisa wished to sell theland to have money for traveland furthereducation but felt shecouldn’t. She became confused as she tried to explain her situation to me. Little by little, I established that Lisa’s mother had been a very controlling woman and also that Lisa had notattended thefuneraland had never been to the gravesite. Lisa reported a recent dream: “My mother is living in the shack
DREAMGATES on that land.” Through dream reentry, we established that this was literally true. At Lisa’s request, I journeyed to the shack and communicated with her mother directly, telling her gently but firmly that she now had moreimportant things to do than to cling to her daughter. Lisa and I agreed on some simple rituals that would enable her to say farewell properly: a loving offering at home, a visit to the gravesite, the burial of an object associated with the mother. Powerful feelings of resolution came with this work. 3. The departed cling to their ruling addictions and desires. A certain kind of tavern gives me shudders. I am conscious of a swarm of dead drunkstrying to getanothertaste — oranother smoke — via the living people at the bar. Addictions and the tug of old habits frequently keep departed peoplefrom moving on to higher dimensions. In thefollowing casestudy,a woman’saddictions wereexacerbated by those of deceased family members who had remained closely attached to her. Hercourageand loveenabled her to dialogue with the departed, to establish healthy boundaries, to help loved ones who had gotten stuck on the Other Side to find their right paths — and in the process, to triumph over her own addictions. A Toast with Honey Janet was troubled by a dream in which shesaw herself wearing four large nicotine patches. When we began to explore the dream, she readily admitted she was a heavy smoker who had often considered quitting without much success. I asked her if she considered using nicotine patches. “I wouldn’t touch those things.” She shuddered and folded her arms tightly across her chest. The violent aversion expressed in her body language was surprising from someone who said she was interested in finding a way to stop smoking.
Helping the Departed I asked her to describe the “nicotine patches” in her dream in more detail. “They’re big. They’re sticky and kind of gloppy. I’ve got one back here” — she reached over her shoulder to indicate the base of her neck. “There’s another one here.” As she moved her hand toward her heart, she gasped. “These things won’t let me breathe.” On an intuitive hunch, I asked Janet if anyone close to her had died asaresult of heavy smoking. Shelisted threecloserelations who had died within the previous ten years from lung cancer associated with heavy smoking. Janet’s sister, with whom she had been especially close, had died just a year before. “I feel she’s been with me ever since,” Janet commented, her eyes misting. Then she remembered an uncle who had also died from lung cancer. “That makes four, doesn’t it?” Four nicotine patches stuck to her (in the dream) in a way that wasn’t right. Four dead relatives, in a close-knit family, who had all been compulsive smokers, up to the end. On her deathbed, Janet’s sister had told her, “I’d give anything for a smoke.” If it were my dream (I gently volunteered) I would try to talk to my sister — and maybe to some of the other smokers in the family who had passed on. Weagreed to meetagain the next day. As preparation for this meeting, I asked Janet to bring a personal object that had belonged to her sister. That night I had a dream I understood only imperfectly until my subsequent meeting with Janet. In my dream, I went down in theelevator to the lobby of a large hotel, where Janet and a woman I did not know were waiting for me. Janet introduced her companion as Honey. Shewasawell-dressed olderwoman, quiteformal in her manners. Her face and body were bloated, but she did not strike me as obese; I wondered if the bloating was theeffect of cortisone or similar drugs. We were just starting to get acquainted when Honey dragged Janet away into a crowd of people milling by a coffee machine. I
DREAMGATES watched their heads vanish in a pall of smoke. Irritated, I went after Honey and made her sit next to me, on a settee, so she could hear what I needed to tell her. Who was Honey? I was brooding on that as I drove to my morning appointment with Janet. On the way, I noticed a beer advertisement on a billboard. Theslogan read, “A Toast with Honey,” confirming my need to identify Honey. At the beginning of our meeting, I asked Janet if she knew anyone called Honey. Janet told me this was her pet name for her departed sister. It was only used within the family, and she had not mentioned it the previous day. When I recounted my dream, Janet confirmed my physical description of her dead sister (she had been treated with drugs thatcaused bloating)and her old-fashioned manners. Both of usreceived littleshivers ofconfirmation.I had no doubt, at that moment, that Honey was present. I was struck by how my dream made it clear that I would be counseling two women — not only Janet but also her departed sister — and that Honey might actually be my principal client. I closed my eyes and received a clear impression of Honey. She looked like the woman from my dream, slimmed down a bit. I received a clear flow of thoughts from her. She was a loving person, deeply devoted to her family, especially Janet. She was troubled by therealization that she might bethesource of problems in her sister’s life. She was ready to accept help. I suggested to Janet that sheshould now try to communicate with Honey directly. What welled up from Janet spontaneously, as she talked to her sister, was beautiful and moving: “Honey, I willalways love you,and I’m surethat one day we will betogetheragain. But for now we need to follow our separate ways. You need to go forward into a new stage of learning and growing. I need to get my brain and my body clear of toxins.I don’twant to carry my addictions into theafterlife. Thereare guides who are waiting for
Helping the Departed you — Mom is waiting — and you need to go to them now. You can still visit mein dreams. If you want, we’llcelebrate your birthday together. Wecan even sharea drink and asmoke, if you still need that. But only on your birthday.” As Janet’s words rolled on, we both felt a quickening sense of abounding love and resolution. Afterward, I asked Janet to blow into the object she had brought — a ring that had belonged to Honey — and makeit her intention to transferany part of her sister’s lowerenergy thatwasstillwith herinto thisring.Aftershe had donethis,Janet said she felt immensely “lighter and brighter.” I suggested that she should seal thering in aclosed containerand bury it in her garden. With shining eyes,Janet reported that shecould now seealightform she believed to be her sister’s spirit gliding upward, on its proper path. Janet had dreamed of four unpleasant nicotine patches. This left threeto locateand deal with. Iasked Janet’s permission to journey on this. I soon found her father in atavern on astreet I drovealong quite frequently. I was puzzled by the fact that, while I was quite familiar with that block, I had never noticed the tavern. Janet told me later that the tavern had been the family’s regular hangout until it closed down a decade before, just prior to her father’s death. Her father was apparently hanging out in his old haunts, trying to feed his old habits, unaware that he was dead. I was having a hard time getting through to him. Then a pleasant, red-haired woman appeared. She might have been in her twenties. Shetold meto tellJanet’s father to turn around and listen to her. “I can get him out of here if he’ll only listen.” I realized that she must be Janet’s mother. I tapped the man at the bar on the shoulder. He glanced around quickly but was still not in the mood to listen to his wife. I wondered who or what would get through to him.It occurred to methataconservative, Irish-American Catholic might listen to a male priest and wondered if one might
DREAMGATES intercede. The next instant, an old-fashioned priest complete with cassock and dog’scollarentered thescene. Hetook Janet’s father by the hand and led him on board a train. The image seemed right: Janet’s father was on the right line, heading out. This left two more smokers to be located — or relocated. I found brother Bill and watched as he too boarded the train. However, he sat apart from his father and the priest, clutching a can of beer and a pipe. I found Janet’s unclein a different location,aruralcemetery. He was watching mourners laying flowers at a grave. As I watched, his attention shifted to a nearby headstone. I realized that he was reading his own name, absorbing the finality of his own physical death. I saw Janet’s motheragain, in ashimmering nimbus of light. The unclelooked up and appeared to recognize her. I felt that this situation was about to beresolved in a gentleand natural way and left thetwo of them to get on with it. When I reported theseexperiences to Janet, sheresolved to construct a personal ritual of leave-taking for her three male relatives at their gravesites. Her uncle, shetold me, was buried in theruralcemetery I had seen in my dream journey. We agreed that if she was not ready to give up smoking and drinking altogether, she would takesteps to ensurethat when sheindulged, she was doing so for herself, instead of her departed relatives. She would not smoke in her house. She would stop drinking cocktails at the time that family members had often joked was their “happy hour.” This isalready a happy ending, but Janet’s story hasan interesting sequel. Already an active dreamer with a strong spiritual orientation, Janet felt the need to check on her loved ones after they had moved on. She had a dream encounter with Honey, in whatappeared to bea medical school on a higher plane,and aloving dream reunion with her mother, who assured herthat herfather was doing fine. They were not together (her motherexplained) becausethey had different
Helping the Departed lessons to learn, on different levels. These dream experiences deepened Janet’s sense of closure — with one exception. She was unable to locate her brother Billand was disturbed by my account of seeing him sitting apart on the train, with his beer and his pipe. Janet asked me if I would try to find Bill. I told her she could probably do this herself, given the power of her loveand theskills she had been developing,and that her personalexperiences would befar more valuable than any messages from a go-between. Janet decided to attend a death workshop in which I encouraged participants to journey to transit stations and reception centers on the Other Side by the techniques described in chapter . Janet journeyed to a vast open space that reminded her of St. Peter’s Square in Rome. Raised Catholic and still a believer, Janet wasamused—but notaltogethersurprised—to find herself deep insideacollective belief territory. However, when sheasked fora guide who could help her locate Bill, she was approached by a male figure who looked like Mahatma Gandhi. “Gandhi” escorted her to an oversize train. She found her brother on board, still clutching his can of beer and his pipe. “Bill was nervous,” she reported. “He didn’t want to come with us. I told him he could keep his beer and his pipe if he needed to, though I wasn’t sure this was completely true. I yanked him by the hand. He’s a big man, and he was hard to move. But Gandhi kept a grip on my other hand and gave mestrength to pull Bill off thetrain. “Then Gandhi led us to afountain. He directed Bill to get in. Bill was washed clean and came out looking different. Gandhi presented him with fresh white clothes in a box, like a laundry box. When Bill put them on, he changed again. “Hetold me he needed to check on people we had known. I gave him a quick guided tour, flitting about through our old neighborhoods. He didn’t know thatacloserelative had moved houses or that the neighborhood tavern had closed down. He kept trying to give me
DREAMGATES directions but gave up when herealized everything had changed, that life had moved along since he had died. “Now he was ready to move on. He sort of bunched himself together, imploding inward while something fell away from him like discarded clothes. I saw him shoot straight upward, like a fireball.” 4. The departed are held up by unfinished business. Breton folk wisdom holds that you must always provide proper interment for the dead, or the departed will come back to demand proper burial. During the funeral, you must try to avoid leaving the house empty; otherwise, the person who has departed may feel duty bound to stay and watch over it. Mary’s mother,an Alzheimer’s sufferer, had been “out of it” for a couple of years before her death. Soon after she passed over, she started appearing to her daughter in dreams in a very different guise. She was lucid,coherent — and angry. Shetold her daughter that she had not been cared for or fed properly in her last months. Shealso insisted that herestate had been “stolen” by relatives she had never intended to be prime beneficiaries. Mary had always paid attention to her dreams and promptly hired a lawyer to investigate. The lawyer reported that the mother had been persuaded, during the last stage of her illness, to place the bulk of her estate into the hands of more distant relatives in an irrevocable trust. That night, Mary’s mother visited her in another dream and told her that there were “chinks” in the trust and that it could be broken. She told her daughter firmly that she must stand up for her rights and pursue this aggressively. Based on Mary’s dream guidance, the attorney was able to launch a legalaction to overturn thetrust. In conscious dreams, Mary reported back to her mother. Mary also resolved that when the legal business was complete, she would stage a personal ritual of leave-taking to encourage her mother to move along her higher path. When the living do not heed their dreams, the departed will
Helping the Departed sometimescross into the field of physical (or quasi-physical) perception to get their messagethrough. A sharp,cynical network news reporter I know found his definition of reality blown apart when he walked into a Manhattan officeand saw Al,a producer whosefuneral he had attended the week before. “What are you doing here?” the reporter demanded. Al wasagitated because peopleat the network had not read — let alone used — someimportant scheduling suggestions he had written up just before his death. The memo had gone missing. He told the reporter to look under the blotter on the desk. When thereporter did so, he found the missing memo. As he did so, Al’s form faded out. Such occurrences are by no means uncommon and may — as in this case — be entirely positive and helpful to the living. (If Al had still been fretting about hislost memo acouple of yearsafter his death, it would be a different story.) Spirits may linger to closea deal, to collect on a debt, or to settle a score, as in Deborah’s story: “You Owe Me Money” Deborah, an antiques dealer who bought much of her stock at estate sales, was troubled by a dream of a fellow dealer who had recently died in hiseighties. She had purchased thecontents of hisstore.In her dream, shesaw him lying in hiscoffin. Thecoffin was supposed to be sealed up, but in her dream it was open. She was horrified when the dead man opened his eyes. Some of his friends were present. They kept telling him, as he rose from the coffin, “Lie down and shut your eyes.You’re dead.” When he persisted, they gotachairfor him and sat him down. He proceeded to yellat the dreamer, “You owe me money! You’reselling my stuff,and I haven’t been paid!” Shetried to explain to him that she had paid hisestate. He didn’t want to hearabout that. He cursed and threatened, promising that if he did not get paid, he would cause unspeakable damageto the woman and her store.
DREAMGATES She woke up terrified. Her first thought was, “He doesn’t know he is dead.” The dream camein the midst of aseries of troubling paranormal events at her store — things falling without apparent cause, unexplained knocksand thuds, broken glass — all involving furnitureand objects she had purchased from the dead man’s store. When Deborah reentered her dream,sheconfronted the old man: “What are you doing? Don’t you know it’s time to move on?” “I’m not ready to go,” he told her. “I need more time.” Deborah found herself moving into a place of darkness and terror, a place familiar to her from experiences in early childhood. She called in light and asked for help in guiding the old man toward the light. Hercall wasanswered. She had theimpression of inexhaustible light flooding her. She saw herself projecting light to the old man’s heart area. “It’s time to move on,” Deborah told him gently but firmly. When hestarted cursing and complaining again, sheshut out his words and focused on sending more light. As she beamed light into his form, she saw him rising up from the chair, then seeming to levitate. When herealized what was happening, he marveled at it. He said sheepishly, “Maybeit is time.” She watched him rise up through several apertures, moving toward the Light. This is a beautiful story, but it is not the whole story. As the old man lifted out of hischair, Deborah had theimpression of something over her,and I had thesameimpression. My first image of the old man was of someone raising a mug, clutching at its handle as if terrified it would betaken away from him.It turned out the old manwasasevere alcoholic. I had thefurther impression of something swathed in dark, gloppy material that reminded me of mummy wrappings. Asa higher aspect of the old man separated itself from this etheric stuff and rose toward the Light, a shadow being slid away: an abandoned shell that still retained some degree of life and, along with that, mindless, raging bitterness and alcoholic craving. Deborah and I agreed that
Helping the Departed something must be doneto contain thisloweraspect of the dead man’s identity. Weagreed to conductasecond burial. She would takean object that had belonged to the dead man and use it as a lodging for his loweraspect, until it dissolved overtime. Shewould bury itat theedge of the graveyard where his physical body had been interred. To assist in thetransfer,she would becareful in using and displaying alcohol in her home — since the dead man’s addiction was clearly one of the thingsthat had kept him earthbound and led him to troubletheliving. Afterward, she would purify her homeand store by smudging, sprinkling salted water,and good old-fashioned cleaning. 5. The departed are detained by the living. A woman was troubled by aseries of dreams in which shesaw her departed mother staggering under the weight ofan enormous bucket. Iasked her to go back insidethe dream and ask her mother what was going on. Her mother told her, “I’m weighed down by all your tears. You have to stop mourning me and let me move on.” Part of setting healthy boundaries between the living and the dead is to set a term to mourning: to let our loved ones go. We hold the departed close to the living in ways besides grief thatencumber both. Certain types of séance, ritual,and psychic mediumship — amateur or professional — rely on invoking and channeling “spirit guides” on arather low level. Call in thespirits without thorough screening and without the ability to send them away and you’re in the position of someone who lives in a downtown apartment who throws open his doors and windows in the night, yelling, “Free beer.” The kind of party you’ll get isn’t necessarily the kind of party you want. 6. Some of the departed believe they are damned. If you haveever listened to a hellfire preacher, it willcomeas no surprise to you that lots of people harbor the fear that they may be
DREAMGATES consigned to an unpleasant place after death. People who are possessed by such fearsat thetime of death may cling to theliving in the hope of avoiding damnation. A macabre example of the complications that may ensue can be found in therecord ofaJewish rite ofexorcism performed by a group of rabbis in Safed in the sixteenth century. The rabbis were brought in to help a woman who had manifested signs of “possession,” speaking in a man’s voice in languages she had never learned. When the rabbis interrogated the occupying spirit, it proved to be that of a deceased money changer who feared a terrible fate (because of his cheating practices) at the hands of avenging angels who would bat him like a shuttlecock back and forth across the cosmos before consigning him to fiery torment in Gehenna. Rather than facethis judgment, he had tried to hide himself in the body of aliving person. It is not altogether clear how he got into the unfortunate woman, but the record implies it was becauseshe had given herself over to “unclean” thoughts and practices. The Book of Wisdom counsels (:) that the unrighteous will be “punished according to theirimagination.” Ithink thisissimpletruth. I havealso observed that it is possibleto demonstrateto ex-physicals that if they will only use their imagination, they will discover that they do not have to spend eternity within the parameters of the collective belief territories. 7. Suicides may feel obliged to serve out their time. Cara had arecurring dream. Shefound herself drawn,again and again, to acemetery — “acomposite of severalcemeteries where my relatives are buried.” In the dream, the tombs are open, and Cara looks down on thefacesand bodies of family members. They areall lifeless except for her ex-husband, whose eyes are open. He starts weeping. His sobs rack his body. Cara’sex had taken his own life. It seemed highly significant that
Helping the Departed in her dream, he was the only person in the graveyard who still appeared to be attached to his body. The others had clearly left their corpses behind and gone on somewhere else. Might this reflect how suicides often seem to stay earthbound? Cara began to wonder whether the near-suicidal bouts of depression that one of her daughters had suffered might be connected to the presence in the psychic environment of someone who had killed himself. Caraagreed to try to go back inside her dream to seek clarity and resolution. Shefound that herex wasconsumed with guilt for having abandoned his family. She tried to comfort him, reassuring him that all was forgiven. She woke with a happy sense of closure. By my observation, suicides frequently suffer from a storm of self-loathing and guilt after they discover that their desperate action has not ended the pain that drove them to it. In their loneliness and distress, they reach out to theliving. In extremecases, they may even try to draw a survivor after them. They need compassionate guidance, which the living can sometimes provide — but only on condition (once again) that there are healthy boundaries. We can invoke guidance on their behalf. Sometimes, as in Jessica’s case, it comes as a spontaneous gift: Nanna as a Guide Jessica’s friend Monica had died of a drug overdosein her bathtub in Sydney a year before. The coroner ruled that her death was an intentional suicide. Jessica did not attend the funeral; Monica’s ashes were scattered to the waves. Jessica had aseries of chilling dreamsand dreamlikeexperiences. In some of these, her friend appeared to bestanding behind her, putting her handsaround her neck.Jessica had a quasi-physical sense of this presence, even when performing onstage as an actress. Then she had aterrifying dream in which her friend tried to drag her into a wild tidal poolamong therocks on astorm-swept beach at
DREAMGATES nighttime.Jessicaresisted, fearing she would be drowned. Her friend begged and insisted. Jessica was pulled closerand closer to the pool. Shesummoned her strength and brokeaway, declaring, “No! I won’t go with you.” She woke feeling half-drowned, her life force ebbing low. After Monica’s grandmother died, Monica stopped appearing in Jessica’s dreams. Jessica first spoke of “Nanna” when I perceived a woman in an old-fashioned pink suit with a matching pillbox hat, the sort of thing one might have seen at a s garden party. “That’s Nanna,” Jessicaexclaimed. We had theshared impression that Monica’s grandmother had intervened to serve as Monica’s guide on the Other Side, though Nanna would not be playing this roleindefinitely — she had agendas of her own, on higher levels. Releasing Lost Souls I find it quite wonderful that “ordinary” people with no special training are often able to play the role of psychopomp for the departed, even though they have never heard the word. It bears saying again: If your intentions are good, you will receive the help you need. A farmer’s wife had been increasingly troubled by thesensethat her mother was “still around” six months after her death. The atmospherein the house was becoming oppressive. The daughtereven noticed pains in her joints that seemed to belong to a much older person and thought of her mother’s constant complaints of rheumatoid arthritis. She asked for help and had the following dream: My mother is sitting in the rocker in the house, fussing and nagging, going on and on about things that don’t matter. I know she doesn’t belong here, but I can’t get through to her until I notice my father standing behind me. He passed on almost ten yearsago, though I don’t think of him as being dead in the dream. He’s waving to me, signaling that I should get my mother to turn around and look at him.
Helping the Departed “Mom,” I tell her, “please turn around. Dad is waiting for you.” “But he’s dead,” she snapped. I went over to her and made her turn around. She was flabbergasted when she saw Dad. Then he took her in his arms and they floated up through the ceiling in a shaft of light. The dreamer woke feeling light and happy. In the penumbra of her bedroom, she had the impression of a “ball of light” whirling across the space, vanishing through the ceiling. What role can a nonspecialist play in releasing lost souls? There are four key elements: Helping Lost Souls . Set healthy boundaries. • Makesure, forastart, that you are not feeding someoneelse’s habits. RememberJanet’s decision to quit smoking insidethe house and to stop observing the family’s happy hour? • Monitor your dreams. They will give you clear insight into the situation of departed people who are relevant to you — and what may need to be done. • Honor your departed loved ones in a sensible, appropriate way. You might want to constructasimpleritual to perform on a birthday or anniversary. When I do this, I simply light acandleand put outa bowl of water,a personal objectassociated with the departed person, and sometimes a favorite food or a spray of flowers. . Ask for help. • It’s fineif you’re notentirely sure what you may need to do. There are others who do. If you are already working with poweranimals or spiritual guides,call them in. It is quitesufficient to call on the power of Light and Love, by any name
DREAMGATES you believe in. In dealing with unclean spirits, the name of Jesus Christ isan especially powerful name — though it may not work so well on poor Uncle Fred, who is watching the game on your TV set because he thinks it’s Monday night. . Dialogue with the departed. • Identify the departed person who is in your field. • Clarify whetherthis person isactually awarethat he orshe no longer hasa physical body. If you are dealing with someone who doesn’t know he is dead, awakening him to the situation is often enough to get him moving in theright direction. Depending on your readinessand yourconnections, you can then invoke a specific guide, escort the departed person in a journey to another level, or simply encourage him to move toward the Light. • If the departed person knows sheis dead, you will need to establish what is keeping her from moving on and deal with that by the appropriate means. Dead people often cling to agendas that will seem ridiculously petty once they become fully aware of their new circumstances. You may be able to help a departed person to arrive at that larger perspective. There may also belegitimate “unfinished business” you can help to resolve. • Though “talk therapy” with the departed is often surprisingly effective, you should always be ready to call in additional help. . Consider a “second burial.” • You can’t actually reason with the grasping, addictive, subrational aspect of a departed person, which so often holds spirits earthbound, enmeshing them in a thick webbing of gloppy, toffeelike strands of etheric matter. For the spirit to move on, this casing must be discarded and allowed to
Helping the Departed disintegrate, which happens naturally after the separation is made. However, the discarded “shell” hasa half-lifeand can remain a source of confusion for the living, especially when it is animated by that aspect of the dreamsoul that is sometimes called the body of desire. None of this is difficult to grasp, once you remember that we have morethan one body! • If you have helped to releasethespirit of a departed person, you may need to do something to contain and relocate the residue — the lower energy or “shell” — that lingers behind. A simple way to do this is to arrange a “second burial.” You need something that will draw that energy into itself, or into which the energy can be transferred. An egg will work, provided that theenergy is notexcessively strong. You can also work with a personal object that belonged to the departed person or, failing that, a “neutral” object such as a stone (or preferably, a fruit stone). In this case, you — or the person you are helping — should make it your intention to blow any part of the lower energy that may remain with you into this object. Then you should put the object in a sealed container and bury it, perhaps at the edge of the cemetery where the dead person is interred. If you have becomean active dreamer,confident of your personal relationship with spiritual guides and protectors, you may be able to do more. You may be able to journey with a departed person who needs guidance to a reception center or collective belief territory where he or she feels comfortable. Robert Monroe described his repeated experience of taking ex-physicals by the wrist and conducting them along asort of metaphysical superhighway until they peeled off at various “exit ramps” leading to environments that fitted their tastes or religious upbringings. If you follow your dreams, you may find you are doing some of this work already. We cannot leave this chapter without briefly entering a battle
zone. Notall “lost” soulsaresimply disoriented, frightened, or needy. Theterm criminal souls would better describethose who havechosen to afflict theliving and seek to feed on theirenergy and ride on their backs, to dominate their minds, and even to possess their bodies. Some of these criminal souls belong to dead sorcerers who abused their skills to avoid the “second death” and continueto operateclose to the Earth spherecenturiesafter their physical deaths. Groups that experiment with occult techniques and invoke the spirits without knowing how to discriminate and dismiss the entities they bring through are notoriously proneto noxiousinfluencesfrom this quarter. The basic ground rules here are (a) don’t invite trouble in and (b)call on aspecialist — in ordinary or nonordinary reality — when you are confronting a problem beyond your own resources. DREAMGATES
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Making Death Your Ally Here the indescribable actually takes place. — GOETHE, Faust,Part II The DeathWorkshop: Part 2 Milarepasaid it well: “My religion is to liveand die without regrets.” But who among us is without regrets over things done or left undone, or pain we suffered or inflicted, or moments of uncontrolled passion, or passion unsatisfied? There are people in our lives who have the gift of awakening more regrets in us than we ever knew we deserved. Ex-partners can be adept at this. They can also send us on a guilt trip that leaves us drained of the energy we might use in the effort to put things right. Once, after a conversation with a former partner that left me slumped in self-loathing, I noticed a bumper sticker on afemale motorist’scar that read, “I useex-lovers for speed bumps.” A confirmation from the world. Still, if there was redemption for Milarepa, there is hope for us.
Milarepa, revered asasaint ofenlightenmentand a prince of yogis by Tibetan Buddhists, had a notoriously successfulcareerasa black magician before he saw the light. One of the lessons of his story is that the moment to seek release from karma is now — and that release is available in the instant of awakening. If we miss that moment before death, the act of dying may offer usanother opportunity — depending, of course, on thestate of mind in which we leave the body. If we go out still enmeshed in old habits and patterns of thinking, we will haveto deal with unfinished business somewherefurtheralong theroad (and itcould bea very long road). The Tibetan masterscounsel that two things really matterat the time of death: what we have done in our lives and what state we are in at that moment. We have a chance to transform karma through a heartchangeat the moment of death. “Thelast thoughtand emotion that we have before we die hasan extremely powerful determining effect on our immediate future.” So weshould seek the way to deal with unfinished business now. Placing yourself, in your mind,at the moment of death isan excellent way to gain clarity on the issues involved and the actions required. Saint Ignatius Loyola, the warrior-father of the Jesuit order and no slouch at visualization, recommended thefollowing means of making a sound decision: “Suppose I am at the point of death. What course of action would I then wish to have followed in coming to this particular decision? Let this betherulefor settling the whole business.” He advised that (in case this is not enough to concentrate the mind fully) we mightalso try thefollowing: “Let meask myself how I would like to stand on the Day of Judgment. What decision would I then like to have made about this business? Knowing what rule I would then liketo have kept, I will now observeit, so that then I may be filled with joy and satisfaction.” This isan admirable prescription for revisiting old choices — indeed, the whole pattern of our lives — as well as for weighing new decisions. DREAMGATES
Making Death Your Ally So let us make resolving unfinished business the substance of a deathbed meditation. EXERCISE 1: COUNTING THE BONES See yourself stretched out on your deathbed. The moment when you will leave your physical body for good isat hand. Your vital signs havestopped. Soon your interior breathing willcease,and yourconsciousness, with its subtle vehicles, will definitively separate from your body. Perhaps you arealonein this space. Perhapsa nurse or hospice volunteer is in theroom with you. Maybefriendsand family have gathered. Someone may be praying for you, or even reminding you of the process by which you will travel to the Other Side. Your body is going to be disposed of — buried in theearth orconsigned to the fire of cremation. Maybe you havechosen to have your body exposed in a casket for mourners to visit. Even with the aid of embalmer’s fluids and cosmetics, it is not something you are going to want to hang around. Soon thecolorsand stench of decay and liquefaction will take over. Your belly will inflate with noxious gases until the stomach bursts. Worms and maggots will be your fleshy visitors. So you are definitely ready to move on. If you arefortunate and prepared, you may see the dawning of the Clear Light or sense the presence of a radiant guide who will speed your passage to the higher planes. But first, on the cusp of death, you need to look back over your life and ask some questions. You should answer truthfully and allow yourself all the time you need.
EXERCISE 2: WEIGHING THE HEART . Omissions • What do I regret not having done in my life? (The answers might rangefrom traveling to Nepal, going bungeejumping, or finding a great romanceto doing moreto help others or to using creative gifts.) Now respond to this follow-up question: • If I had asecond chance, how would Iact to fulfill this unfulfilled desire so I could pass on without regrets about something left undone? . Courage • What is the moment I most regret when my couragefailed me — when I was too scared to take that leap of faith or that creative risk, when I gave up on love or a big life dream? Now respond to this follow-up: • If I were presented with a similar challenge now, could I find the courage and resources to meet it? . Making amends to others • What harm or hurt have I caused to other people, intentionally or unintentionally? (Picture their faces.) Now answer this: • If I could live my life again, what could I do to make amends or seek forgiveness? . Forgiving others • What harm or hurt have others caused me? Now consider this: DREAMGATES
• Am I now able to open my heart and forgive them? If I cannot forgive, can I at least let go and move on without carrying regrets? . Self-forgiveness • Is there anything in my life for which I am unable to forgive myself? Now answer this: • If I had moretime, what could I do to put things right, so I could forgive myself? . Grace • Am I willing to ask for help and trust in thesaving power of love? If the answer is less than an unequivocal “yes,” there’s more work to be done! The issue of self-forgiveness is a binding theme here. The “weighing of the heart” — thejudgment wefaceafter death — is likely to be an act of self-judgment, based on a thorough life review. The self that will judge, be it noted, is infinitely deeper and wiser than our ordinary personalities, our everyday selves. Thejudgment will determine whether we need to repeatclasses and whether we will be reborn into higher or lower planes. How do you feel after your partial life review? A little shaky? The good news is you can risefrom your deathbed. You have been given areprieve. Use your time wisely, to deal with as many of theseissues as you can, so you can live and die without regrets. Now when the bardo of dying dawns on me, I will abandon all grasping, yearning, and attachment, Making Death Your Ally
DREAMGATES Enter undistracted into clear awareness of the teaching, And eject my consciousness into the space of unborn Rigpa; As I leave this compound body of flesh and blood I will know it to be a transitory illusion. Meeting Your Personal Death Milton demonized Death, suggesting that his other nameis Satan. In later times, we have made a true devil out of Death, by pretending that he does notexist. (Remember Baudelaire? “The Devil’s greatest art is to make us believe that he does not exist.”) Yet Death walks at the shaman’s left shoulder. Death is the shaman’s adviser. And Death hoversat your shoulder now, whether or not you will turn to look or listen to the murmuringsat yourear. He bobs up like the specter in a medieval masque, shadowing your moves, edging your lines with irony. Are you ready to meet me? Why not? You have been laid out on your own deathbed. Perhaps you have been drawn to reflecting thateven now,as you breatheand turn the pages,every cell in your body isconstantly dying and being reborn. Who can count the little deaths that are taking place in your body as you inhale and exhale? Millions of cells are being born and devoured each time your lungs empty and fill. “What is there to fear?” as Michael Murphy’scharacterasks in Jacob Atabet. “Lifeand death are simultaneous. We are living flames, burning at the edge of this incredible joy.” Death, by any name, is a peerless teacher. In the Katha Upanishad, Death is Yama. The youth Nachiketas, consigned to Death by his orthodox, disapproving father, enters the halls of Yama by an inner pathway whose gateway is the heart. When hearrives in this place, heat firstencounters only utter darknessand emptiness, theexperience of the Void. He waits three daysand three
Making Death Your Ally nights before the bright flame of his spirit draws Death, who agrees to grant three requests. Nachiketas chooses wisely. He asks, first, that when he returns home, his father and his father’s people should know him and welcome him. Next, that heshould have knowledge of the secret fire that leads to the heaven world of the immortals. Yama instructs him that this secret fire is “hidden in the cave of the heart.” Finally, Nachiketas wants to know what happens to those who “go beyond” — not only physical death (it seems) but also the second death and further transformations. Yama does not want to answer this question, but the boy holds Death to his promise. The answer, again, lies in fire: the fire of the seeker’s own death and transformation. Nachiketas himself is thesacred flame. Thejourneyer himself is the path he must walk. In complete darkness, in a cavernous space, I invited the founding members of the Death workshop to journey to the realm of their personal Death and return with his teaching. The drumbeat started at the tempo of a death march. I thought of my own encounters with Death from early childhood. Of thetimeI was plunged deep into the earth and lived awholelifetime, itseemed,among aspecies of ghostly white beings—growing to manhood among them, matingwith them — until I swam up to the surface, through clays and shales that gave way to a wondrously luminescent green light, to find myself a boy again, in a half-grown body beginning to heal. Of my recent visionary encounter with Sandalphon, gatekeeper between the physicaland imaginal realms, the Big Wheel, glowering dark and bright. Psychic Edgar Cayce dreamed of Death as a fair, robust, rosycheeked young man who carried shears that he used to cut the psychic cord that binds the subtle body to the physical body at the crown of the head. What would the new explorers find? • Tony entered a “spiral flame” for his face-to-faceinterview with a Death that wore his own face.
DREAMGATES • Rose found herself drawn to a pleasant rest home, watching the breeze through the open windows stirring the ferns in a planter and recognized that Death may be as gentle as this. • Carol journeyed far beyond her body with a Death that called herself Mercy — and came back very cold. She had met Mercy on the road, between our sessions: My Name Is Mercy Carol was on the highway, driving several hundred miles for a funeral, reliving memories ofexperiences she had shared with her friend and reflecting on the fact that two of her closest friends had died in the space of a fortnight. She found herself speaking to Death out loud. She said, “Death, this is thesecond time you havetouched me personally in thelastcouple of weeks.” Immediately she saw the image of a woman coming toward her from the sky. The woman wore clothes in flowing black, with iridescent purple highlights. Under the purple-black robe, Carol saw the ripple of a white gown, trimmed in shimmering gold. The woman’s face and whole being radiated light, warmth, and kindness. They looked at each other for a long moment. Then the figure vanished. Can this be Death? Carol asked herself on a morning walk the next day, thinking about the woman from thesky. She noticed her path had taken her within an arm’s reach of three mourning doves that did not fly away as she came near them. She felt they were telling her to pay attention. Suddenly, she saw the figure of the shining woman in black. Here comes Death, she thought. “Want to be friends?” the woman asked. “What is your name?” Carol responded. “Mercy. My name is Mercy.” Carol was startled and deeply moved. From the depths of her being she said, “Yes, I do want to be friends.”
Making Death Your Ally • Roderick had also encountered his Death, in a dream he chose to reenter: My Scottish Death On the border between an elegant country estateand a wild, wooded area, I seea kilted Scots soldier with a broadsword, marching around the perimeter. I wait for him philosophically. My fate has been determined. He swings the sword up above his head and brings it down. I hear a light whooshing sound as he cuts through my body, from the crown of my head to the crotch. He makes a second, horizontal cut almost immediately, carving my body into four quarters. Instantly, I am moving about in my second body. I return to the place where I have been staying. I feel some confusion, since I still havethesemblance ofa body—naked, vulnerableto cold and hunger. I wonder if I can somehow continue with the research and writing I have been engaged in here. I picture myself rising upward and am instantly levitating through theceiling up into theatticand through the rafters. I decideto call my wifein this dream. Shecomesto the phone, but I can’t hear her because she is speaking so softly. I spend sometimeroving the night streets, watching people who can’t see me. I start following them toward theentertainment district, then realize it’s time to start looking for more evolved environments on higher levels. I begin to remember I don’t need to hang about waiting fora guide; I can journey to these dimensions by focusing my intention. When he reentered the dreamscape, Roderick interviewed his hitherto silent “Scottish Death.” “Who are you?” “I am your Death. I will come at the appointed time to release you into the land of your Father.”
DREAMGATES “Why do you come to me now?” “Icometo prepare you for whatawaits for you,as forall mortals, and to help you to prepare others to confront their own death with courage. I walk at your shoulder. I guard the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead. I am your guardian as well as your summoner.” “Why do you cut me into quarters?” “I makethesign of thecross within your human form. This both releases you and protects you. Your form may not be borrowed by other entities, which may be parasites and deceivers. In quartering your body, I release your great energy to the four quarters — and unite you with your new form.” “I found myself wandering in thesecond body, torn between purposes.” “You are often divided likethis in life. Why would it be different during the transition to the higher worlds?” • Debbie found Kali in a special space, approached through a series of doorways. Kali described herself as “your jealous sister.” Ah, Kali. The Masks of Death Death wears many masks. In Hopi mythology, the god Masau’u — depicted as a skeleton wearing a mask — is the gatekeeper and mediator between therealms of the dead and theliving. In the Hopicreation story, when the ancestors journey up from the underworld to inhabit the Earth, it is Masau’u who welcomes them into the sunlit world. He is a friend and guide to humans and knows the ways between the worlds; he is also the lord of boundaries, fire, fertility — and humor. He can turn anything into its opposite. The ancient Greeks had two names for their Death Lord. They called him Hades, which means “the unseen,” and Pluto, which means “rich.” The words hintat thetreasures to befound in his realm. The
Making Death Your Ally Greek myths also warn of the need to travel these roads with great care, to avoid thefate of the hero Theseus, who losta part of himself when it remained stuck to a bench beforethethrone of Hades — and that of his friend Pirithous, who remained stuck there indefinitely. Yama, the Hindu Death Lord, looms largein Vikram Chandra’s incandescent novel, Red Earth and Pouring Rain. Sanjay’s time is up, but because he is a marvelous storyteller he is able to strike a bargain with Death, who loves stories. So long as Sanjay is able to hold theattention of hisaudience — who soon fills thecourtyard outside his room — he is allowed to live. As Sanjay weaves his tales, Death ceases to be an adversary. Sanjay makes stories for the joy of making stories, and when he is done, he rests his head in Yama’s lap, peacefully accepting his transition to another life. By the way: Sanjay the storyteller is a white-faced monkey who is typing his memories of his human incarnations, to be read aloud by children. No writer with a sense of humor will find it hard to identify with Sanjay’s plight. It is remarkable what leaps off the page — not only the pages of a novel, but the pages of life — when the presence of Death is acknowledged. The close encounter with Death brings courage, which Rollo May rightly identified in The Courageto Createas the heart of thecreativeendeavor. Itencourages theability to go beyond thesurface vicissitudes of daily life. It brings keen awareness of a larger reality. This isclearly reflected in theexperiences of survivors of near-death experiences. Kenneth Ring, one of the foremost researchers in this field, reported in Life at Death that percent ofall “returners” questioned by him said that their lives had changed; percent said this had been the most importantexperience of their lives; percent said they would gladly repeat it. We know now what all dreaming peoples know: that the encounter does not require the physical extremity of a life-threatening
DREAMGATES illness or near-fatalaccident. We moveamong the departed in spontaneous sleep dreams. Asactive dreamers, wecan rangefarand wide through the afterworlds, observing how different aspects of the soul go to different destinations. In the process, we learn to brave our deepest fears. Weencounter radiant guidesand powerful spiritualallies. We discover special places to which wecan return — in this life and perhaps beyond. I sometimes journey to a pleasant campuslike setting I first visited in asleep dream over twenty yearsago. It isa place of highereducation for people who no longer have physical bodies. In my original dream, I found the “freshmen” gathered for commencement. They were mostly elderly, the women in cute white dresses with ribbons and bows. Thechoir sang hauntingly beautiful songs thatcelebrated the link between dreaming and the entry into a larger reality: Morning, sunset, evening star — all dreams. What cannot be known in the dream cannot be known in its glory. The soaring beauty of their voices is with me as I write. Occasionally, in journeys to help the departed, I havetried to guidethose who seem ready for those halls of weathered, ivy-draped stone, set among rolling lawns and exuberant flower beds and sparkling fountains. When my spirit needs to soar, I sometimes ascend, in conscious dream journeys, to a world as fresh as the first day where I fly with the winged powers after leaving my astral body, as well as my physical body, behind. And when I most need clarity, Icheck in with my personal Death. He/she has worn many masks. When I was a teenager in Canberra, Australia, she came swirling through my dreams and reveries in the terrible shapes of Kali. At the back of the history class on airless afternoons, I wrote a cycle of poems in her honor:
Making Death Your Ally In the darkness, a dark woman came to me Softly as the ticking of a clock Like Roderick, I have seen Death swinging a Scottish broadsword. I haveseen Death asa great black bird,asa purple bruise flowering in an empty sky, as a sweet and luminous friend. The Death I want now (to echo a splendid line of Octavio Paz) carries my name, wears my face.
If we can be more conscious, this will make higher centers work. The functioning of higher centers will be in many ways miraculous. — P. D. OUSPENSKY, The FourthWay Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size. — ALBERT EINSTEIN The world is not only stranger than we suppose, it is stranger than we can suppose. — J. B. S. HALDANE T lhe Coming of the Multidimensional Human PART FOUR
Choosing Your Birth Birth and death aretwo sides ofaswing door. To go beyond the gates of death is to gain access to the realms of soul where you can put yourself back in touch with your life purpose and life gifts you may have chosen before you were born. Plato’s haunting account of how souls choose their paradeigmas, or life patterns, in the closing pages of his Republic wasattributed to theinsights ofasoldier who had died and come back. Plato taught that the things that are truly worth knowing come to us through anamnesis, or “remembering”: remembering knowledge that already belongs to us, on the levels of soul and spirit. The Greek word for truth, aletheia, literally means “that which has not been forgotten,” that which has not been consumed by the waters of Lethe. Everyone should know that you cannot live in any other way than by cultivating soul. — APULEIUS Soul Remembering CHAPTER FOURTEEN